


Shenandoah

by ScullyLovesQueequeg



Series: Tumblr Shorts [9]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Gen, post iwtb, pre-season 10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:01:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25062802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScullyLovesQueequeg/pseuds/ScullyLovesQueequeg
Summary: Despite their differences, Scully & Mulder have a tender moment through a shared hobby.
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Series: Tumblr Shorts [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1532234
Kudos: 6





	Shenandoah

**Author's Note:**

> I thought I posted this. I guess I didn't.
> 
> Named after the ship/the song.

“I’m coming over to get the last of my things,” Scully said, the tension palpable through the phone. Mulder didn’t know how to respond. He had just walked in from running some errands. The doctor said getting out of the house was good for him. It was a minute before he answered:

“Alright. Do you know what time?”

It was a simple question, but she took a long time to answer, and he was worried that maybe, she wasn’t alone. _Maybe she finally moved on._

They were together in that house for years but in a matter of months, she probably got over him.

“I don’t know. It takes me a while to get out there.”

“Okay. Want me to make dinner?”

She doesn’t answer that, at least not immediately. There’s a silence that stretches between them, and he thought he heard a man’s voice, but Scully’s voice spoke over it:

“I’m not planning on staying long. I just left some of my things.”

“I can meet you halfway,” Mulder offered, standing awkwardly by the couch. He hadn’t even removed his jacket.

There was another long pause, and he didn’t hear anything for a while. He should have hung up, but he didn’t. He couldn’t even bring himself to do that. She had not called in weeks, and he missed the sound of her voice. The house was lonely.

“…can we meet at a diner?” Scully finally said, her voice soft and sad.

“Sure. What is it that you left?” Mulder asked, immediately setting off to find it.

“…I want his birth certificate.” 

She didn’t use that name. Not anymore.

“…why?”

“Mulder, don’t—”

“He was my son too, _**goddamn it**_.”

There was a loud thud. Mulder’s fist was resting on the back of the couch. When Scully heard the noise, she tensed up.

“…why don’t we do dinner another time?”

He didn’t have any fight left in him, so he hung up.

The next time she called, he was in the middle of inserting a model of the _Shenandoah_ into a bottle. He shouldered the phone as he continued to wiggle the hull to fit into the neck of the bottle.

“Yeah?”

“Mulder, it’s me. I… could we talk?”

He didn’t respond. Most of his concentration was on the tiny ship that he was trying to maneuver into the bottle.

“Mulder? You there?”

“Hold on,” He replied, but she continued:

“I’m coming over, I want to talk to you.”

_Crack._

“Oh fuck me,” Mulder muttered, pausing to assess the damage. The crack was minuscule. The ship would survive.

“Would you rather I not come over?”

“I—I’m a little busy right now,” Mulder said in a hurried way. “ _Easy, easy_ … I know it’s going to fit…”

“Mulder, what are you doing?”

“Hold on, I just have a little more to go… it’s almost in all the way…”

“—are you fucking someone?” Scully asked suddenly, and Mulder paused, to draw a breath. He set the bottle down and gave Scully his full attention.

“Why would I answer the phone if I was having sex, Scully? I was in the middle of doing something. What did you want?”

“To see you. To make sure okay, but it sounds like you’re being taken care of,” Scully said indignantly. Mulder let out a sigh of frustration.

“I’m in the middle of trying to get a ship into a bottle,” Mulder explained, and he waited for the laughter he expected to follow. It didn’t come.

“My—my father… he used to… my father and I would make model ships to put into bottles. He did most of the work, but he let me design the sails and paint everything. I… I haven’t thought about that in a very long time,” Scully said quietly, and Mulder felt his heart melt. He could hear the emotion in her voice.

“There’s a ship on the vineyard called _Shenandoah_ … when I was a kid, I used to watch it sail, and I’d wave to the people on board, every summer. They always waved back,” Mulder said, recalling the memory. The pair of them stayed silent for a couple of minutes before Scully spoke again:

“I’m coming over. I’d like to see you. And your ship.”

He didn’t have any fight left in him, so he agreed.

* * *

When she came over, he was gently fixing the sails from inside the bottle with tweezers. The rigging had gotten a little tangled, so he made sure to sort that first.

“How long have you been working on that?” Scully asked, removing her jacket and stepping up beside him. He glanced over from where he was viewing things with a large magnifying glass that was situated on the table.

“I don’t know. A little less than 2 weeks, I guess. Figured it would help me to have a hobby… a reason to get up in the morning,” Mulder said. Scully gave him a sad smile and pulled up a chair beside him.

“…mind if I…?” She let that question die in the air, but she didn’t need to finish it for Mulder to know what she meant. He handed her the tools he was using and watched as she resumed the meticulous work he had been doing.

The pair of them sat in silence, their attention fixed on the ship contained in the bottle. Their faces were nearly touching when Scully turned her head to ask Mulder to pass her something. They both paused, and Mulder felt himself drowning in her eyes, wanting so badly to make love to her and to just have her near.

“Pass… me that… over there,” Scully said, and Mulder slid the long metal bar which was curved at the end. “Now, I need some of that plasticine… so we can make the water.”

Mulder handed her the clay, and watched her work, and allowed himself for a minute, to imagine doing this with the son he didn’t get to know. It was a fleeting thought that he did not chase. After a long while, Scully’s stomach growled, and Mulder leaned in and whispered in her ear,

“We should eat.”

He knew she liked that. She turned again, perhaps to stop him from pulling away with a kiss, but he had already drawn back and was getting up from his seat. He heard her set the bottle down on the wooden stand he created, and she followed him into the kitchen.

“Thank you for letting me help,” Scully said, as she watched Mulder go through the motions of getting food out of the fridge.

He didn’t answer, not immediately. Not until he heard her sigh.

“It’s nothing,” He answered mechanically.

“It means the world to me.”

He glanced over at her and she offered him a small smile. He gave her half of one but resumed his task of preparing dinner.

“You mean the world to me,” Mulder said quietly. “I love you, I know I didn’t say it when we were living together, even less now that we’re apart—“

“Mulder, please—”

“You’re like that ship. No one, not even me, can touch you. You exist in that bottle, and people will wonder how it got in there, and think whatever shit about how it got there, but someone put you there, and now you can’t come out. You don’t want to.”

The kitchen was silent, except for the ticking clock, and after a moment, Scully stood.

“I’m going to go,” She said.

He didn’t have any fight left in him, so he just let her.


End file.
